Soon You'll Come Home
by Berserker Nightwitch
Summary: Following Darry from three months after his parents' death until a few months after Dally's death. Not all angst, I promise. Song is from All Dogs go to Heaven.


Inspired by _Soon You'll Come Home_ from the movie All Dogs Go To Heaven

"Soda! Darry! Are you two gonna sleep all day?"

Darrel Curtis groaned and buried his face into his pillow. He knew that if he didn't get up soon his parents would be sending Ponyboy in to wake him up. Once they had discovered that the child had an almost boundless supply of energy, the senior Curtises had let their youngest child wake his two brothers. Somehow, the baby of the family was always the first one up.

Darry could smell breakfast in the making when he sniffed at the air. He couldn't remember his mother ever having made waffles and bacon at the same time, but he supposed there was a first time for everything. Just like someday she would allow him and his brothers to eat chocolate cake for breakfast if they really wanted to. Darry smirked thinking of the day that would happen.

Their parents weren't strict, Darrel mused, but they had definite ideas about what was and was not acceptable for meals. With that thought, he went back to waiting for his baby brother to open the door and jump up onto the bed. He was prepared this morning and would tickle Ponyboy until the younger boy was senseless with laughter. Then Sodapop would come in and help whoever was losing the battle.

After all three boys were so sweaty with their morning ritual they would head into the kitchen and the day would begin properly. All Darry had to do was wait until Ponyboy came in. It couldn't be too much longer.

When he heard four new voices and a yelp of pain and annoyance, Darry remembered. This wasn't a normal Saturday morning in the Curtis household. There hadn't been a normal morning in three months. It had been that long since the Curtis parents had been in a car accident and were killed. Darry supposed that Ponyboy must have set something to wake him up; that was the only way the boy ever got up before noon lately. He must have wanted to watch the sunrise this morning.

The other voices belonged, not to his family, but to four of the brothers' closest friends. Two-Bit Mathews, the group jester. Steve Randle, Soda's closest friend since grade school. Dallas Winston had just gotten out of jail, so his voice was present as well. Darry was surprised however, to hear the voice of Johnny Cade. Johnny almost never spoke, and when he did, it was usually so quiet that it wouldn't cover three feet, much less through a wall and an entire bedroom. It sounded as though he was yelling at someone.

Darry pulled himself out of bed and into a pair of worn-out jeans. He was trying to stifle a yawn as he padded into the kitchen. The reason for the commotion earlier became clear when he looked inside. He leaned against the doorframe to watch the scene before him.

Two-Bit and Steve were cleaning what could have been breakfast off of the walls while Dally started to try his hand at cooking. Johnny was holding a rag under the sink, letting the cold water soak into it. He rang out the rag until it was left damp and walked over to the final person in the kitchen. Ponyboy was sitting on the kitchen table, sucking his thumb. Johnny pulled at Ponyboy's wrist until the younger boy released his thumb.

Johnny held the cloth against Ponyboy's hand for a few minutes, then pulled the rag away to inspect the appendage. At that time, Darry continued his trek into the kitchen, knowing – but realizing that he couldn't really do any6thing about it – that his expression was slightly curious, but was holding not even a hint of amusement. Ponyboy looked up when he noticed his eldest brother and tried to smile while shrinking away from the larger figure.

"I was making breakfast," he explained. Darry raised an eyebrow at the mess as Two-Bit turned to see who Ponyboy was talking to. When he saw who it was, he flashed Darry an apologetic grin.

"Me and Steve came in and started tickling him. He was holding the pan, so when he was trying to get away the food went all over. Then he burned his thumb on the pan." Steve grunted, indicating that that was in fact how it had happened while he struggled to reach an egg that had managed to get stuck to the ceiling.

"Ah." Darry nodded and walked over to Ponyboy. Johnny was re-wetting the rag, so Ponyboy's thumb was back in his mouth. "You okay Pony?" The boy looked up at him and nodded.

"Have a good day, alright?"

"Okay, Darry! You, too!" Darry nodded at Sodapop's shout. He and Steve had to go to work even though it was a Saturday. That was the thing with working Greasers, they went when they were needed. No matter what was happening in their own lives, if a job needed to be done, they would go. Money was that important. It was, after all, their only means of survival.

Darry walked into the living room and smirked. There was Two-Bit, watching Mickey Mouse. The eldest Curtis was slightly shocked that he wasn't hopping around the room, miming the cartoon's antics. Then Darry continued his scan of his home. On the couch Ponyboy had passed out and, sometime while he had been asleep, had fallen against Johnny.

"Is he okay?" Darry asked, nodding to indicate his youngest brother. Johnny nodded and a slow smile spread across his face.

"He just woke up too early, that's all," Johnny explained.

"Do you have any idea why?"

"He wanted to watch the sunrise. Said it was important this morning for some reason."

Darry smiled at his baby brother, then looked back to Johnny. "Do you want me to take him to his room?"

"Nah. He ain't bothering me. He don't weigh much."

Just then Dally sauntered into the room, drying his hands on his jacket. "I never want to hear any of y'all say that I don't help out around here, got that?" The other three people looked at him. Two-Bit raised an eyebrow, not comprehending – or acting like he wasn't comprehending – what exactly Dally was talking about. "I just cooked all of y'all breakfast _and_ I washed the dishes."

"Thanks Dally, but I don't remember ever saying that," Darry announced. Dally shrugged and glared at Two-Bit, who grinned and went back to watching the Saturday morning cartoons.

Darry sat on his bed, holding a torn up piece of paper in his hands. He had never let anyone see this paper before, not even his brothers. Three days after his parents' funeral, a social worker had given him the paper. His eyes blurred as he read the heartless comment again. He didn't know why he continued to reread it; he had it memorized after all.

The state is allowing the three of you stay together, but only so long as none of you gets into trouble. At the first sign that you are not a worthy guardian, Sodapop Patrick Curtis and Ponyboy Michael Curtis will be removed from your care and placed in a home where they can get the love and attention they need. We will be keeping track of your situation, and we will take action if we feel that it is deteriorating.

Darry angrily wiped at his face, not allowing any tears to escape his eyes. Greasers don't cry. A social worker had come by a few times since that event, and even though they didn't know about the note or what it said, Soda and Pony had been on their best behavior all of those times. It had sometimes seemed to Darry that they instinctively knew what would happen if they were anything less than wonderful to those people.

If their parents were still alive, though, none of this would be happening. Darry would be in college on his football scholarships, Soda would be getting ready to graduate and marry Sandy, and Pony would still be a naïve little kid who loved going to school and woke up way too early in the morning. Darry and Soda would not be breaking their backs trying to scrape together enough money to feed themselves and their brother, and Pony would not be the quiet introvert he had turned into. Sometimes Darry wondered if their parents would even recognize them if they were to see them now.

"Please… Mom, Dad… we'll be better if you come back. I know it got annoying, but we never meant for it to make you leave." Darry knew in his heart and mind that he and his brothers had nothing to do with the wreck, but sometimes it made him feel better to take the blame onto himself, no matter how contradictory that seemed.

"NOO!" Darry jumped out of bed and ran to his brothers' room. He had known before going to bed that Pony was going to have a nightmare that night. Over the past three months, Pony had had nightmares that woke him up screaming and shaking almost every night. Darry had taken him to the doctor, but they weren't able to do anything for him. They claimed it was an overactive imagination. Darry had wanted to hit the doctor when the man had said that. Pony's imagination wasn't to blame. His imagination was what had kept the house so fun for so many years. Their parents had praised that imagination. But, that was the doctor's belief.

"Pony? Pony, come on, Baby, you're just having a nightmare," Soda murmured, holding the youngest Curtis brother tightly in his arms. When he woke up on another ear-piercing shriek, Darry walked over to their bed and leaned down, rubbing soothing circles on Pony's back. Eventually the child calmed down enough to apologize for waking them up. Both of the older brothers were relieved to hear it, because it meant that he was feeling better.

"Do you remember what happened this time?" Soda asked gently. Ponyboy nodded slightly and leaned back against his older brother.

"Parts of it. Darry?" Darry looked into his eyes as the baby of their family turned his attention his way. "Did I do something wrong?"

"What are you talking about, Honey?"

"To make Mommy and Daddy leave." 1

Darry didn't have to look at Soda to know that his eyes were as wide as Darry's own. He turned back to Pony, who was still sniffling and trembling a little. "Of course not. Why would you think that?"

"They were always saying that we would be the death of them someday, and then they died, and… What if it was something I did?" Darry almost cried as he heard Ponyboy's logic. Instead he reached over and pulled his baby brother closer to him.

"Shh… No, you didn't do anything wrong, Honey. They said that even before Soda was born. And they were always just kidding. Don't you remember that they were always laughing when they said that?"

"Sorta."

"Well, I do. Trust me, Baby. You didn't do anything wrong, okay?" Pony nodded, but it was obvious that they would need to have a talk the next morning. Pony was asleep almost before he finished nodding. He never stayed awake long after his nightmares. "Darry?" Soda asked.

"Yeah?"

"We're gonna be okay, right? I mean, we'll get through this?"

"Of course we will." Darry knew he spoke with more confidence than he felt, but Soda needed that right then.

"I wish they'd come back."

"So do I, Little Buddy, so do I."

"Two-Bit! Two-Bit! Arch… Keith Mathews, get off of our refrigerator this instant!"

Two-Bit looked shocked to hear his real name, but he stayed on top of the fridge anyway. He knew what was coming the moment he gave in. Besides, there was something more at stake here than his sides. He knew there was an extra chocolate cake up on one of the cupboards somewhere.

"Two-Bit," Dally growled warningly. He normally didn't get into helping Darry deal with Two-Bit, but he was promised an extra large piece of cake if he got Two-Bit down. He would also have an uninterrupted five minutes of tickling him.

That was the main rule for anyone who entered the Curtis household. If you didn't listen when one of the Curtises told you to do something, the punishment was a minimum of five minutes of tickle torture. It was an effective, if unique, form of punishment. Besides, it got the job done.

Just then, Ponyboy walked in with Two-Bit's prize possession in his grip. The switchblade had been left on the couch when its owner had gotten up. "Hey, Two-Bit! If you come down, I might give this back to you," Ponyboy offered sweetly. Soda could tell by the boy's grin that he was just trying to get their friend off of the kitchen appliance, so he decided not to get involved.

"NO! Give her back!"

"Her?"

"Yes, 'Her'! C'mon, Pony, she needs me! Sarah's my baby!"

"Oh for Pete's sake, don't tell me you named your blade!" Dally threw his arms in the air. He paced the kitchen, and then punched the fridge so hard that Two-Bit had to hold the sides to make sure he didn't fall off. Once he had regained his balance, though, he pouted down at Dally.

"Don't try and tell me you've never named an inanimate object?" The group was more surprised by the fact that Two-Bit knew the word 'inanimate' than that Dally started to turn red. "Ha! You have! What was it?"

"Why should I tell you?"

"So that we're even!"

"Well I didn't ask you to tell me that you had!"

"I'm still asking you!"

"Maybe if you got down here and talked like a normal person, I'd tell you."

"First of all, I have never been normal. Second, I know as well as you do that if I go down there you'll tickle me 'til I forget what I wanna know. So tell me now, and then I'll come down!"

Dally thought about it a moment before smirking. "No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Please?"

"No."

"You're mean!"

"You're a baby!"

"You're pig head!"

"You're a idiot!"

"You're a…a… a doodie-head!"

"You're a crocodile breath!"

"Egg sucker!

"Roach smeller!"

Before the verbal spat could degrade any further, Darry walked in. "Children, grow up!" He then walked over to the fridge and pulled Two-Bit off of it. "Problem solved. Now would you two please act your age?" Both men looked sheepish and mumbled an apology. Then the tickle torture started.

The alarm clock ringing in his ears woke Darry up. Even after three months he still wasn't used to getting up at five in the morning so that he'd be ready for work. He stumbled into the kitchen, just barely awake. He found Ponyboy sitting at the kitchen table with his head in his arms. Darry tried to be quiet in case his youngest brother was asleep, but Ponyboy looked up the moment Darry set foot inside the kitchen.

"Hey, Kid. What are you doing up this early?"

Ponyboy looked down at the tabletop and traced one of the lines in the wood with his finger before answering. "I had a bad dream… but I'm over it now." Darry pulled up a chair and sat down next to his brother.

"Care to tell me what it was about?" he asked, pushing Pony's hair back from his forehead.

"I can't really remember most of it; it's fading. But I know that it was sad. Me and Johnny had to leave, and when we tried to come back, we died. Only I came back to life, but I wasn't the me I am now. The entire dream it just felt like you were real mad at me, and Soda wasn't like himself. Then Dally disappeared." Darry hugged Ponyboy.

"Well, that's not going to happen, alright?"

"But what if it does?"

"We'll get through it. We always have." With that said, Darry got up and began making breakfast, trying to hide how much that dream had bothered him. When Pony had told him, he got the strange feeling that it was a warning of sorts. He shook his head and went on with his morning routine.

By the time Soda got up, Ponyboy was back to his usual self, and had turned on the radio. Darry smiled as Ponyboy sang along with Elvis' "Teddy Bear". Sodapop walked into the room, grumbling about being woken up at the unreasonable hour of seven in the morning.

"You should have been awake an hour ago," Darry reminded him. "I just didn't have the energy to fight you this morning."

"Yeah, yeah, I know."

One month later, Johnny was jumped by a bunch of Socs. When Two-Bit found him, Johnny was shaking and crying. The entire gang got together to help him out, and eventually, he healed. But he still carried a blade just in case. He would never let something like that happen again.

Four months after Johnny was attacked, he used the blade, but not in self-defense. Darry heard the full story after the fact, but he found out that Johnny had killed the Soc to save Ponyboy from drowning. The boys had run away without telling anyone where they were going. Or at least, that was the story going around. Darry knew that one person knew where they were. Dally.

On the second day after Pony's disappearance, Darry remembered the conversation he had had with Ponyboy a morning many months earlier. When he remembered what Ponyboy had dreamed, he got a sick, cold feeling in the pit of his stomach. All he could think about was Pony dying.

When Sandy died, he realized that the reason Soda hadn't been Soda in Pony's dream was because he had been depressed. He also realized that his own anger in the dream was from when he had hit Ponyboy the night of the murder. Everything seemed to be following the lines of Ponyboy's dream.

A week later, Ponyboy came back. Within a few days, Johnny and Dally were dead. Ponyboy was not himself, but he eventually came out of that. He finally accepted what had happened when he had to write an essay for English. The teacher had given a copy to Darry to read, hoping it would clear up some things between the brothers. It had.

"Ponyboy, I just want us to be a family."

"Why? So someone else can die?"

"What are you talking about?" Soda gasped. Neither he nor Darry knew what Ponyboy meant by that statement, but it was obviously important to the youngest brother.

"We were a family, then Mom and Dad died. We were a family again with the rest of the gang, but Johnny and Dally died. Now, as soon as we try to be a family again, who's gonna be the next to die?" Darry reached over and pulled his baby brother into a hug.

"We're gonna try and make sure that that doesn't happen, Baby. But Johnny wouldn't want you to think of it like that, and neither would Mom and Dad."

"Yeah, and no one knows what Dally would want us to think about it," Sodapop quipped, lightening the mood somewhat. "You have to remember the good times, and try to get over the bad ones. They're all still here as long as we remember them."

"You think so?"

"Of course," Darry assured him. "Don't you ever feel like Mom and Dad are here with us?" When Pony nodded, Darry smiled. "Well, that's the same way it'll be with the others. We're never apart, so long as we believe that they're still with us."

"Okay… are Two-Bit and Steve still part of our family?"

"And what else would we be? If we weren't here, you three would start to get all mushy!" Two-Bit yelled as he ambled into the house, carrying three grocery bags.

"What's in the bags?" Soda inquired.

"Enough boxes of instant cake mix to last a lifetime!"

"Or at least a week," Steve finished.

None of the people in the room noticed the four presences watching over them. The four smiled at how well their family was getting along without them. At that moment, they knew that everything would be okay with the ones left behind.

A/N: Alright, now that I have finally beaten the writer's block that has been plaguing me for the past month, what did you guys think? It's a little longer than I originally thought it would end up, but I think that for the most part it turned out okay. Please review and let me know what you think. And please be kind, as this is my first fanfic attempt outside of the anime realm.

1 – Okay, I know he was about thirteen when his parents died, so he probably didn't call them Mommy and Daddy anymore, but sometimes even after a kid 'grows up' they still call their parents that when they're really stressed about something and the need the stability. Or something like that.


End file.
